


Happy Families Are All Alike

by Tamari



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Experimental, Family, Family Drama, Gen, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-04
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-19 10:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamari/pseuds/Tamari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tale of two fiefs in pictures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Families Are All Alike

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Malorie's Peak Prompt #71, Broken Dreams, at Goldenlake.

**A picture of Conté**

Stone walls, ivy, tall trees and grapevines and hedges.

The smell of rain in the summer and wood smoke in the winter.

Overflowing libraries, desks filled with documents and scrolls and too much time.

Servants (not slaves, not here) dressed in sweeping skirts and embroidered tunics.

The ghosts of four running, laughing, playing children, and two who sat still as the trees and pretended they didn't want to join in.

Two black-haired girls (women), one with hazel eyes and one with blue, one impetuous and one dutiful.

Quiet tears sobbed into pillows and hateful words whispered to no one and nothing said aloud but "yes, milady" and "no, milady" and "dinner is served".

Dark brows drawn and too heavy crowns and girls broken down in the shade of oak trees.

-:-

**A picture of Eldorne**

An old castle, rolling hills, too much dust.

Dust in eyes and noses and deep into hearts, muffling words and thoughts and breaths.

Empty rooms, tapestries and statues and luxuries long since sold off.

Women in richly decorated gowns, two decades out of style, hands as rough as the chunks of red clay in the soil.

No ghosts of occupants past (bar the one no one wants to revisit).

Three sons, all bitter and harsh, one a little softer than the others but hardened by war and loss and the undeniable truth of being Eldorne.

Meaningless chatter just to fill the silence that stretches the length of the hills.

The clang of practice swords and a too heavy legacy and men who refuse to cry.


End file.
